This application seeks to form a consortium of 5 tribal colleges with the goal of increasing the number of Native Americans advancing on to PhD Programs. This is a planning grant to develop the best strategies to accomplish this goal for an upcoming BUILD application. The Specific Aim of this project is to increase the graduation rates of Native Americans from programs that lead to biomedical graduate tracks by developing an effective, synergistic core tribal college consortium that will work collaboratively toward this gol at both the associate's and bachelor's level. It will do this through the following activities: a) Foster greater connectedness between core tribal colleges to promote inter-program translation, exchange and collaboration on bioscience research and curriculum development. b) Leverage SKC's RISE Program (educational logic model and experience) to help develop/translate appropriate curriculum and research at tribal colleges with current BS (Env Sci) programs, to increase bioscience content of their programs. c) Develop a plan to funnel students from the other BS programs into consortium's national research partner network for externships in tier-one institutions. d) Determine both curriculum and research needs at AS institutions to better facilitate 2-H2 transfer to BS programs at tribal college 4-year programs, such as SKC's Life Sciences. e) Address articulation needs among consortium members. f) Develop a strategy to collectively build faculty mentoring excellence in the biosciences (we will be assisted by the National Research Mentoring Network in this activity). g) Modify existing SKC RISE Logic Model to incorporate Cultural Validation and Professionalization as essential components of Persistence Model for American Indian students in the sciences.